With literally hundreds of web hosting providers competing for your business, it may be confusing to find the one that's right for your web site. A few key considerations can help you narrow down your choices to the most affordable and best options to meet your personal, professional or business web page needs.

What kind of web site are you planning?

Your personal web page has far different needs than your professional web page and that needs a different style of hosting than an eCommerce storefront. Most web hosting companies offer plans sized to fit any size of style of web site. Which plan you choose depends on what you intend to do on your web site.

Personal Web Page Hosting

There are dozens of free servers that will host your personal web pages for free, and many of them offer most of the perks that you get with a paid web hosting account. If you want a personal web page without the ads, though, you can find web page hosting for as little as $4.95 a month with no advertising, and with support for things like PHP and mySQL. Many affordable web hosting packages will even register a domain name for you for free.

Professional Web Page Hosting

If you're setting up a web site for a professional firm, you'll definitely want to opt for a web page hosting provider that offers excellent support, free or cheap domain name registration and a good web site builder with professional looking templates to make creating your web site easy. If you're planning to take orders or any sort of customer information via your web site, you'll also want a web hosting provider that offers you secure server access (SSL). Depending on the features you choose, you can pay $4.95-$29.95 a month.

Business/eCommerce Web Page Hosting

If your business web site is more than informational web pages about your business, your web hosting package should include eCommerce software like a shopping cart, a checkout, a payment system and SSL access. You'll also need more space and bandwidth allowance than a typical personal site. You'll find many affordable eCommerce web hosting packages starting at around $14.95 a month.

Enterprise Level Web Page Hosting

Do you need space for your business to collaborate on projects, store information for easy retrieval and to track orders, deliveries and work hours? You'll want to find a web hosting company that specializes in providing enterprise level web hosting solutions to large businesses. Your web hosting account should include the highest level security access to keep your important information safe, 24/7 customer support and tools to make access easy for all your employees. Affordable enterprise level packages start at around $99 a month and range upwards from there depending on the amount of customization and use your web pages will get.

To view our recommended web hosts, visit, Recommended Web Hosting Companies.